The legacy media is under enormous pressure to remain the dominant sources of news in politics and culture in the face of the growing influence of citizen journalism, Axios co-founders Jim VandeHei and Mike Allen claimed on Friday.
VandeHei and Allen admitted that citizen journalists on social media now essentially control the flow of information as public trust in the establishment media nosedives.
They said the winners of current political battles are “those who control the flow of information to the largest numbers of people — or the right people at the right moment on the right topic,” citing Elon Musk turning X into a free speech platform as a major factor that’s turned the tide of the information war.
Thus, they wrote, the media’s lack of total control over the flow of information puts “more pressure on you as a news consumer to discern what and who you can trust for reliable, actionable information,” and places “pressure on media companies like Axios to up our games by winning and keeping trust — offering clarity in moments of confusion, and reporting clinically not emotionally.”
This comes after VandeHei lambasted Musk and citizen journalists during a speech last month at the National Press Club, claiming Musk’s mantra that “we are the media now” is “bullshit.”
“You don’t proclaim yourself to be a reporter!” he shrieked. “That’s nonsense! Like, being a reporter is hard. Really hard. You have to care. You have to do the hard work. You have to get up every day and say, ‘I want to get to the closest approximation of the truth without any fear, without any favoritism.’ You don’t do that by popping off on Twitter. You don’t do that by having an opinion. You do it by doing the hard work.”
NEW: Journalist Jim VandeHei has profanity laced meltdown because Elon Musk keeps telling creators on X that they are the media now.
— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) November 25, 2024
I didn’t realize how triggering this was to these clowns 😂
“Everything we do is under fire. Elon Musk sits on Twitter every day or X today… pic.twitter.com/qQoOhRViz8
But he also urged the left to “come to grips legacy media is just not as important as it thinks it is” and to “realize that the gravity of right-wing discourse is now taking place on X.”
Gallup polling found in October that the American people’s trust in the establishment media collapsed to a record low in the wake of numerous hoaxes and false narratives perpetuated by them over the years, such as the Russia collusion hoax, misinformation and coverups of the COVID plandemic, and more.
“We aren’t just the media here now,” Donald Trump Jr. posted on X Thursday about the congressional spending fight that concluded Saturday.
Yes
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 19, 2024
“We are also the government. We finally have the ability to asses information rapidly & pressure our representatives to act in a manner that actually represents what we want. They can’t hide and do the bidding of swamp oligarchs anymore,” he added.